Why Hurry?
If we hate being hurried anxious, why do we do it so much?
I’ve been sitting on the topic of hurry for some time now, a few years in fact. It seems worth beginning the conversation on it by addressing the sizable gap between posts on this blog. All the time I hear beloved YouTubers apologize for going some time without posting, even if just for a few days. The critical difference between them and myself (beside the medium) is that it’s their livelihood and it’s not mine, even though some authors have that same situation here on SubStack. No posts means no views which means no ad clicks which means no money to pay the rent—it’s an awful cycle. There is, however, a worse fate in store for the negligent poster on YouTube: audience abandonment.
To that end: I don’t fear losing you, dear reader, over my (short) absence and I refuse to feel that way. I hope you don’t feel offended. My question as it regards our YouTube professionals is this: why do their audiences leave if they stop regularly creating videos? The same reason it occurs in any industry: silence is disquieting and production is distracting and profitable. No new videos to watch when you sit down for lunch or lay down for bed means getting stuck with your thoughts. No new Marvel movie means no new discourse and no new raid means all your guildmates stop logging on. Before we move on, note how each of those I mentioned is connected to a massive industry.
What’s that got to do with hurry?
So what’s the connection between these forms of entertainment and hurry? I argue that the hurried soul is critically dissatisfied and in danger of remembering that forgotten fact at any moment. So you lash out at your creator of choice when it stops creating enough fulfilling stuff to save you from being with your own self. It feels like if your favorite content creator, be it person or corporation, just made one more thing and did it now, you could be fulfilled, finally. But it’s an illusion and you’re really just hoping the illusion lasts you through your lunch break. And by you, I mean me, of course. I have a new video game that’s scratching an itch for me and I’ve gone to great extremes today to wring it dry for fulfillment. I didn’t find any, despite my urgent searching, despite my hurry.
John Mark Comer in his book, “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”, woke me up to the illusion. He writes succinctly: “hurry is violence on the soul”. For sake of personal disclosure, I did listen to this book on 2x speed in a hurry. Since then I’ve been hyper aware of the ways I hurry. Speeding on the expressway, having some audio in the background playing always, and watching something while I eat. Those behaviors may not seem to match your definition of hurrying, and that’s just fine. If you’re curious I’d implore you to read JMC’s book and maybe some Dallas Willard and John Ortberg to boot. My point is, however, I haven’t stopped all of those behaviors. In fact, as I’ve accumulated more responsibility since reading JMC’s book in my Freshman year, I’ve actually gotten more hurried.
What to do about it?
I’m not satisfied with it, not in the least. I’ve awoken to find myself on mission to live the unexamined life and to make a wreck of my Spaceship Me. Thankfully, after trying full-time employment and full-time study last semester I suffered a burnout that is only now snapping me out of the illusion again. This may be the part where, just in time for the new year, you expect to hear me proclaim a mission to unhurry before the calendar expires. Well, I won’t and not just because I expect I’d have given up by February. To the point, objectives and checklist boxes are usually matters of great hurry, not less. Instead, I’m gonna try one meal without YouTube and one walk to the store without AirPods.
But why? Why bother unhurrying? Modern Corporate America isn’t supportive of this idea, in fact, it’s outright hostile and opposed to the concept. Satisfaction, the real deal, that’s why you should bother ditching hurry in 2025.
Maybe it will strike any readers of the inaugural post shocking to read me state in no uncertain terms: God alone can satisfy the human. He alone can do what TikTok, YouTube, your favorite author, and your job cannot. Even better, he is truly available always, even when your favorite creator is sleeping, but only to people who are unhurried enough to see him. Not watching YouTube during lunch won’t make me nor you a more Godly person—but it might just be preparing us to be. Writing this article instead of sleeping won’t make me less godly, but it may be another way I’m still subtly wishing for the illusion to be real.